The simple reason one startup farm chose only female founders for its next class

Blackbox, an intensive
mentorship program for international startups, is trying
something new: It chose only female-led companies for its next
18-startup, Google-sponsored, two-week residential course later
this month.

Why?

There are a lot of good
answers, drawn from research and observation, like the chronic
under-representation of women in tech, or a report from Illuminate
Ventures that claims that women-led startups make better use
of their cash and have 12% higher revenues than the
average.

But the one reason that stands paramount,
says Blackbox founder Fadi Bishara, is that female founders care
more. The best,
most successful startups emerge when the founders are really
passionate about the work they're doing.

"That comes from an emotional
connection," Bishara says. "And it's more with
women."

The way the Blackbox program
works hasn't changed much over the last four years it's been in
operation.

Take a bunch of startups from
around the globe, pack them into a house in Palo Alto, California
— the heart of Silicon Valley — for two weeks at a time, and give
them training, tools, mentorships, and the critical introductions
to valuable connections like advisors and investors they'll need
to succeed.

Given that international focus,
with companies drawn from more than 50 countries, Blackbox takes
the inclusion of many viewpoints and cultures as a priority, says
Bishara.

"Typically, we make it as
diverse as possible," he says.

Half of all Blackbox
participants have been women overall, Bishara says. But this
so-called Blackbox Connect Female Founders Edition is the first
program that will be entirely women. Thanks to the sponsorship of
the Google for Entrepreneurs program, their Blackbox fees are all
taken care of, plus they get a solid day of mentorship at
Google's Mountain View headquarters.

The actual startups are in
pretty diverse fields, from art education to e-commerce to mental
health to adtech. They come from places as far afield
as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland,
Israel, Lebanon, Poland, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United
Kingdom, and the United States.

One founder, Tatiana
Birgisson, won Google's own startup Demo Day recently with her
company Mati Energy,
which has a proprietary energy drink formula she came up with
while suffering a bout of depression during her time as a student
at Duke University.

By living in that house
together, Bishara says, the founders get to draw on
each others' "rich knowledge" and become better businesspeople
and leaders.

From Bishara's standpoint,
focusing on female founders is both a canny business move, since
"'overlooked' is a great place to focus on," as well as a
professionally fulfilling one.

"It's valuable to really see
hungry and talented people getting great value," Bishara
says.

The Blackbox Connect Female Founders Edition will take place in
Palo Alto from April 27 - May 8,
2015.